No Easy Answers
by tielan
Summary: John doesn't let himself get to the nightmares stage. He just gives up on sleep. Episode epilogue to 'Ghost In The Machine'


**NOTES**: post-episode fic for _Ghost In The Machine._

**No Easy Answers**

John finds Teyla in one of the rec rooms, giving Torran the 0200 feed.

He knows that Rodney's working frantically on the Asuran virus-scanner, filtering out everything else in his focus to do something useful, to block out his failures. John doesn't want to interrupt that - it would make him feel better, but it wouldn't be fair on Rodney.

Somewhere in the city, Ronon probably tosses on his bed as the nightmares crowd him, or runs through the city like all the Wraith in Pegasus are after him. If Ronon's running, he'll come back eventually - but the nightmares never go away. John knows.

He didn't even get as far as the nightmares.

Instead he stared up at the ceiling, fingering over his failures one by one, their leaden weights dragging down his soul until he couldn't take it any more. Sitting up was an effort, walking out of his room like wading through quicksand, and despair clogged his footsteps all the way to Teyla.

This rec room has become known as Teyla's 'feeding room' - no television or sound system, just comfortable couches, some footrests, a bookshelf, and peace. John craves the peace right now.

Rather than turn on the light, she's lit a candle in the shadowy dark and covered it with a diffusion shade to cast a soft glow around the room. In the warm colour of the candlelight, John's sins don't feel as heavy, and he steps into the room, scraping his knuckles across the door's surface in a notice of his presence. "Hey."

She looks up from contemplation of her son and there aren't any questions in her eyes - only the mirror's answer to John's conflict. "Hey."

His hand rubs across his neck as he comes in and sits down in the couch. "Couldn't sleep."

"I, also. When I try..." She shrugs, somehow conveying all the helplessness of their situation in that gesture.

There are no easy answers, only easy questions. His mother told him that once, years and years ago. John doesn't remember precisely when it was said; time distills the memories, leaving only the essence behind.

John wonders, when he looks back on this day, what will he remember?

Betraying a friend? Losing a colleague? Taking the easy way out?

"We couldn't have trusted her. She said so herself."

Reason helps - or is it an excuse? It went against the grain to leave Elizabeth behind the first time, but John let her be captured by the Asurans for the sake of Atlantis - the greater good - and she died for it; was uploaded into a computer and her body killed. It's not his first failure; and it won't be his last either.

The sting of failure doesn't care about firsts or lasts; it knows he failed, and the barb sinks deep.

"It was...safer not to trust." Teyla says after a moment. "We couldn't know how deep the link between them went."

"We could have brought her back and found out."

He'd argued for it at first, only to be shut down by Woolsey. Rodney had pointed out that there might be programming that even Elizabeth couldn't override - links and connections to the Asurans that weren't so easily severed. Their knowledge about the Asurans was limited to two sources: what the Ancients had made of them, and what the Asurans said they'd made of themselves. Neither were reliable sources - not when it came to looking upon them as enemies.

Not when even Elizabeth had said that she was no longer sure that she could trust herself.

John looks up from the shadows as Teyla shifts and Torran protests. He averts his eyes from the gold-dusted curves as she neatly swaps her son from one breast to the other, the rounded head attaching hungrily to her nipple. "How's he doing?"

"He is greedy," she says lightly. "And growing so fast." Her smile blazes in the semi-darkness - motherhood and love burnishing her features clear in the candlelight.

"I've heard they do that." John sits back and swallows down the lump in his throat. "And that they're bad when they start teething."

"Not for a few months yet, we hope." Teyla leans back, and her eyes lift from her son to John, very deliberately. "Elizabeth thought he might be yours."

He's used to closing these doors in his mind. This is just one more. "I'm guessing you set the record straight."

"Yes."

John doesn't mention that Rodney initially thought the same thing - that there was a second of blinking, unthinking panic that hit Rodney's eyes the first time John mentioned Teyla's pregnancy. He wasn't sure whether to be amused or offended then; he's still not sure what to feel now.

Their gazes hold steady, an acknowledgement that neither of them will voice. Then Torran protests again, one fist flailing at her breastbone, and Teyla looks down at her son, breaking the link, leaving John free - as free as he'll ever be.

They all claim parts of him - the people who became his family here in the city that became his home. Ford, Carson, Elizabeth, Ronon, Rodney, Teyla, Keller, Carter - God help him, even Woolsey. And when they're gone, when he fails them as he always does, they take parts of him with them, irrevocably lost.

Teyla would probably say that loss is an integral part of life.

John would say that he'd fight against the losing as long as he could. He did for Teyla when she was missing.

Elizabeth's not missing; but he has to think of her as dead and gone - one more white headstone in John's mental Arlington. If he doesn't, he'll go mad with guilt; and John has a job to do. He doesn't have the luxury of either madness or guilt.

When things go wrong; focus on the job to be done.

When all else fails; focus on the job to be done.

When you fail yourself and others; focus on the job to be done.

Focus on the moment.

In the moment, it's enough to be sitting here with Teyla as she feeds her son. Enough to take advantage of an hour of peace in a room of candlelight. It won't last forever; he'll go back to his room, and she'll take Torran back to her rooms and Kanaan, but it doesn't need to last forever - just long enough.

It's not what he wants, but it's what he needs - and it's enough.

"John." Her words break into the quiet, and he lifts his eyes to her face, aware of a wave of heat against his cheeks. But the heat fades when he sees her expression - a weary guilt to mirror his own. "It was…safer not to trust her. But that does not make it right."

It used to be easy to do what was right. Or, if not easy, at least…simpler. "Do what you can live with, and live with what you've done."

"Yes," she says, after a moment. Her eyes never leave his, and there's more in them than just guilt over Elizabeth's abandonment - there's an apology for something that needs no apology, not between them.

Looking back at Teyla, John feels the truth of his mother's words coming back to him.

There are no easy answers; but maybe the answers aren't meant to be easy.

--


End file.
